A control device for an electrical heating appliance is known from U.S. Pat. No. 6,498,326 A. The latter describes an arrangement for the control of electrically controllable devices, particularly electric cookers, in which a control element comes to rest in movable and removable manner on a substrate, which can for example be the surface of a glass ceramic hob. Within the control element and below the glass ceramic hob are in each case fitted permanent magnets, which are mutually oriented in such a way that they mutually attract and as a result the control element is held on the glass ceramic hob. Sensors are also fitted beneath the glass ceramic hob surface and detect a magnetic field strength. If the control element is displaced parallel to the glass ceramic hob surface, the resulting change to the magnetic field lines circulating through a plurality of sensors is recorded by said sensors, so that a switching process can be triggered. A similar control device is also known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,920,131 A.
Therefore the problem of the invention is to provide a control device of the aforementioned type, which permits reproducible switching positions of the control element and also a plurality of different triggering movements.